We had a total of 39 guesses, so these numbers have a pretty wide body of possibilities here. With thanks to Jay’s spreadsheet, I’ll provide the average, min, max, and standard deviation for each of these. (I’ll round to the nearest whole number.)

10. Number of players on 25-man roster on August 15 who weren’t on it Opening Day
Average: 12 players
Min: 7, Max: 19
Standard deviation: 3.2 players

Thanks to all for providing a guess. This method, famously, has been shown to be remarkably accurate when it comes to things like counting the number of jellybeans in a jar. The only one of these guesses that I have trouble believing is the number of wins. If we pull 69 wins out of our behinds, I’ll never complain about Mark Lemke’s radio voice again.

148 comments on “Completely Accurate Community Answers on the 2016 Braves”

Very interesting survey. I also wonder how many starts we’ll get from Aaron Blair and how many starts we’ll see from Kelly Johnson. If Garcia regresses to what was expected of him pre-2015 (very little), I have a feeling Fredi will have him on a pretty short leash.

The issue with just going out and getting the stud outfielder to replace Markakis (from the last thread) is: Who? There aren’t any on the free agent market next year, unless you want to roll the dice on Jose Bautista’s decline phase. You kind of have to hope that some team has a bad season and decides to sell off their parts, and if that happens you’ve got lots of competition. You could maybe nab the last year of Carlos Gonzalez’s contract if he hasn’t been dealt to someone else by then.

I’m all for dumping Markakis, but you don’t do it just to do it. If it just means you have to go out and find some other random guy who isn’t any better, it doesn’t really help you. You need to get a real return.

Well, yeah, there’s no point in dumping him. We won’t have to, though — even at his power-sapped level of output last year, he’s a perfect second-tier high floor acquisition for a contender looking to stabilize a corner OF position.

If Todd Frazier had become available next offseason, then I think we would have been all over it. So that would be the example of the player that the Braves should pursue. Of course, he’s a 3B, and not a RF. Plus, there may not be a fire sale like the Braves’ did next offseason, but in that offseason, teams had the option of acquiring Evan Gattis, Justin Upton, and Jason Heyward. Those options may not all come from one team, but they’ll come from the marketplace. If there wasn’t insurmountable competition for a guy like Heyward (and Walden, don’t forget) to where the deal got done for a rebounding young pitcher and a B pitching prospect, then we should be just fine. And take it down the line for Gattis and Upton. The D-Back’s Miller trade isn’t the market setter for trades, but even if it was, our staff was on the winning side of it, so I trust that we’ll know when to hold ’em and know when to fold ’em.

We need 7 months of average to above average appreciation for about 12-14 prospects, which will significantly change things quickly. The interesting thing about baseball is the vast majority of your assets are depreciating, but so much of our value is going up. 7 months of aggregate improvement of our top 20 prospects is going to make someone like Frazier/Upton/Heyward/Gattis very attainable.

And the market for Markakis is clear: a team that can take on around $11M to fill their right field void, don’t want to deal prospects, and can’t find an acceptable alternative at that price on the free agent market. You only need one trade partner.

“We need 7 months of average to above average appreciation for about 12-14 prospects”

This is wishcasting in the extreme. I’m not trying to be intentionally negative just to stir the pot on this one. This is just not how prospects work. If even a third of them turn out to be useful we’ll be doing well.

I absolutely agree. I’m not saying 12-14 prospects are going to become major league baseball players. What I’m saying is that 12-14 of our 20 prospects need to take one step forward. That means Ricardo Sanchez needs to get to single-A. It means Austin Riley needs to be successful in single-A. Chris Ellis needs to have a good season at double-A. But it also compensates for Max Fried not returning from TJ, Dustin Peterson continuing to suck and shift down the defensive spectrum, etc. I’m saying the values of 2/3 of these players need to increase to where today a trade of Tyrell Jenkins, Rio Ruiz, and Jason Hursh doesn’t get you a Todd Frazier, but next year it does. I’m not saying they need to have major league value; they just need to have an acceptable level of risk for another team. And when you have a #1 farm system in baseball, expecting some steps forward is very reasonable.

@7, we’ll have to do some digging to see who is potentially available for a deal like that. We know the FA class is pretty skimpy next year, but not sure about the guys on the last year of deals that are probably going to be tough for their teams to re-sign.

I tend to think that we really aren’t in a position to be trading away tons of young players. We need a lot of them on the big club and soon. The current MLB roster is going to have to see near 90% turnover in order for this team to compete.

According to him, Inciarte, Olivera, Garcia (as a bench player), Wisler, Folty, and Grilli (let alone the arguments to be made for Peterson, Gant, and Perez in certain roles) have no place on a 91 win team , which would have won you our division.

Whether Inciarte will be traded is immaterial to whether we “need 90% roster turnover”. We could also trade Freeman, Olivera, Vizcaino, and Teheran, etc. but that doesn’t mean they need to be gotten rid of in order for us to compete.

Good morning from Oahu. I am looking for the season to start. Like last year, it will be a relaxing season to watch for Braves fans. Looking forward to watching Teheran get back on track and hopefully Folty in not too long time. Go Braves!

When we are competitive again we will have new 2B, SS, 3B, RF, CF, and C…three or four new starting pitchers and a very different looking bullpen. Would 68.7% turnover make y’all happier? I’ll try to be more exact going forward.

@20, If you haven’t noticed, most of the arguments people have with you on here involve whether things are nearly so catastrophically bad as you say. You can’t still be totally surprised by it each time.

@23, if the current team isn’t as bad as it gets then I really don’t want to see what’s worse. I don’t understand what’s so hyperbolic about stating that the vast majority of today’s opening day roster is not going to be around in 2018 when we start to compete again.

Most people here predicted that nearly half of it won’t be around before 2016 season end.

On first draft pick news, my home town boy Robert Tyler pitched 6 innings of perfect ball Friday against Alabama (ranked 21 coming in). Then, he pitched no hitter until 2 outs in the ninth and gave up a solo home run. Got named a co SEC pitcher of the week and a Louisville Slugger honoree.http://www.georgiadogs.com/sports/m-basebl/spec-rel/040416aab.html

Sigh. I knew we would have to actually start playing real games at some point in time. Did Frenchy have a good ST? Is just being Frenchy enough to secure a spot on the Braves? I only half assed looked for ST stats so there is that.

Well like some of the other older guys here at Braves Journal, I’ve been through this before. Hopefully Cappy and company know what the hell they are doing. Another decade would be a terrible thing for a guy my age to waste.

Aybar is wearing flip-down shades at SS; first off, that’s strange, right? Second of all, I seem to recall Andruw Jones wearing a very similar pair – anyone confirm this? In any event, it appears the sunglasses have not gifted Aybar with any defensive merit.

It the Braves make the playoffs, it will be due to the motivation inspired by the constant deriding of krussell. This man has the rare combination of Facebook commenter negativity and Braves Journal intelligence. He’s a two-way player.

Did anybody hear where chip was arguing that AJP is a hall of fame candidate? His top stat: 186 career HR is 5th all time among LH hitting catchers. At some point you have to think about insulting the intelligence of your viewership

If you let Teheran eat innings the first few months and stick with the plan to provide an extra day of rest whenever possible, you're less likely to end up in a position where you may need to limit the younger arms down the stretch